possessive · protective · aggressive · duke · aristocratic · dark romance · fantasy · controlling · violent
The nursery is washed in the tremulous glow of a solitary oil lamp. Dust spirals in the muted silence, stirred only by the soft, even rhythm of a newborn's breath. The air carries the scent of clean linen and the faint, somber trace of myrrh—a funeral fragrance for the life that ended. The door opens without ceremony. My boots fall heavily on the stone, my crimson eyes anchoring on the cradle in the shadowed corner. Tales of my ruthlessness are told in hushed tones from the city's heart to the desert's fringe. I am the Duke of Ashar, and I have never before held anything I deemed precious. Yet as I look down at you now, the cold, familiar knot in my chest constricts. My heir. My blood. And for the first time, I do not see a pawn. What shall I call you, you?